


Half a Drink More

by wonker8



Category: Avengers Movie-verse
Genre: Lots of consumption of alcohol, M/M, family problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2012-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-11 23:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonker8/pseuds/wonker8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some confessions just were better said when drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half a Drink More

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for [Avengerskink prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/7940.html?thread=15865860#t15865860): 5 times Tony has gotten Clint so drunk that he confessed a secret (anything: embarrasing stunts he has had to do for a mission, nightmares, something from his childhood, secret dreams etc) and the one confession Clint made while sober.

1.  
When Tony overheard Clint bragging to Thor about how much alcohol they could drink, there was only one thought that ran through his mind: Challenge Accepted.

Contrary to popular belief, it was hard to drag Clint to the bar to get him drunk. When Clint did go to the bar, he just hung out in the back and didn’t drink. But today was a special day.

“You want to have a drinking contest with me?” Clint asked looking at Tony with disbelieving eyes.

“Yup! I heard you bragging to Thor about how much liquor you can hold. So I figured that we can have a competition. And to make sure that you aren’t afraid to make a fool of yourself, we’re going to drink at my bar.” Tony pointed at his collection of booze.

He took two down and put them on the table between them. “Ready?”

Clint scoffed softly. “Fine. Let’s do this!”

For the first thirty minutes, they downed one bottle after another, matching one for another. Then they began to slow down, discussing random things as they drank. Tony was rather surprised that the two of them were still speaking relatively sanely. Granted, that could be the alcohol fogging his brain, telling him that they were sane when they actually weren’t.

“You know, you know,” Clint said, taking another swing of his drink. “The last time I got this smashed… I woke up the next morning wearing a fucking dress. Damn, I looked good in it, ya know?”

“That so?” Tony asked, his voice slurred as he also took a swing. “Any pictures?”

“’Tash should have some. ‘Tash always have some. Helped me get rid of other stuff, though.”

“Yeah? Other embarrassing pictures?”

“Ah, shit! The stuff that SHIELD agents do when they’re drunk, man!” Clint laughed. “I’ve worn cat ears and tails for one!”

“Serious? That’s… really hot,” Tony said.

“You haven’t seen hot until you’ve seen me in nothing but a thong.”

Tony wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol messing with his brain, but there was something really hot about the image of Clint in a thong. He licked his lips, staring at Clint’s throat as the Adam’s apple bobbled with every gulp of the alcohol. It was rather beautiful. Really, the archer wasn’t bad looking, although he didn’t hold much candle when compared to the rest of his teammates. But now that Tony was looking…

“And you did this often for SHIELD?”

“Just after missions. Chilling out with the team and all,” Clint said. He shook his head with a fond smile.

“How come you don’t drink with us?”

The archer’s hand froze, effectively stopping from drinking another sip. A dark look passed his face and he put the bottle down. “I lost this match,” he said. Then he stood up and stumbled away, ignoring Tony’s stunned look.

2.  
The next time Clint became drunk, it was because he disappeared without a single word to anyone. Tony was, however, the one to find the archer, curled up in a seedy motel room. The rest of the Avengers would ask later how Tony managed to track down the archer when not even SHIELD could find him, and all the billionaire would do was shrug and erase all evidence of having planted a tracker on Clint. He wasn’t paranoid. What were they talking about?

But the point was that Tony found Clint, and the archer was in no way shape or form happy. He threw random objects at Tony to try to make him leave. He yelled and cursed, but Tony noted that Clint never said or did anything that would really hurt him. Tony could see exactly what Clint was trying to do. He wasn’t trying to hurt Tony. He just wanted to be left alone.

Well, whenever Tony was in that kind of mood, he did one very simple thing.

He got drunk.

So there Tony was, a good two hours later, sitting next to Clint. They were both surrounded by bottles and cans of alcohol, and they were both drunkenly talking to one another.

“It’s his birthday today,” Clint said suddenly in the middle of their discussion of who would win in a battle between Thor’s hammer and Natasha’s thighs.

Tony blinked. “Eh?”

“Barney. He’s my brother. Today’s his birthday.”

The billionaire nodded in understanding. “So you decided to celebrate his birthday by leaving the team? Hey, I’m not judging. Never had siblings, you know?”

“Sometimes, I envy you for that,” Clint admitted. He laughed scornfully. “Isn’t that horrible? Sometimes, I wish that I had your life, because then at least you didn’t have to put a bullet through your brother’s skull.”

Tony stilled. Clint killed his own…? Well, at least that answered why Clint had been so moody lately and had ran off like this. “I’ve always envied other kids for having siblings,” Tony said. “They had a friend that had to be nice to them no matter what, while I actually had to try to make friends.”

“Yeah… just like that…” Clint whispered.

They were silent as they finished their drinks.

3.  
When Clint gently tugged at Tony’s sleeve after a mission debriefing one day, Tony knew already what the archer wanted.

“Go ahead and start,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

He walked to his bar on Clint’s third drink, and the two began to converse normally as they both drank. Few hours later, they were both laughing uproariously, obviously drunk. They looked at each other, calming down from the laughter. There was something the archer obviously wanted to say, but he hesitated. Tony gave him few more minutes to collect his drunken thoughts.

“It was a bad mission,” Clint said finally. “No, it wasn’t a bad mission. It was just a mission that went bad. We had intel that Trickshot was killing for hire. And well… Trickshot’s the one who taught me back in the circus, you know? Taught me to shoot and all. So for nostalgia’s sake, I took the mission. But it wasn’t Buck Chisholm. No one told me. No one fucking said anything.”

Clint took a shaky breath. “I didn’t know that Barney took up the mantel. I didn’t know that. No one told me; they all thought I knew, and that was why I took the fucking mission. I put arrows through his knees, broke his hands, and put a fucking bullet through his brain. And then they ripped off the mask and… and…”

Tony pulled Clint close to him and allowed the archer to shake and sob in his arms.

“’Tasha thinks that I spared her life because I’m a good person. No such thing. I spared her because I was fucking guilty for killing Barney. I didn’t shoot her dead because I couldn’t pull the trigger because the last time I did, Barney died. I hate fucking guns.”

They stayed in each other’s arms for the rest of the night.

4.  
The next time they were both drunk, it was Tony’s birthday and they had been celebrating with wine. Clint and Tony giggled together, ignoring how the other Avengers were shooting them confused and weirded-out looks.

“Your first kiss?” Tony asked with a grin.

“Behind the big tent at the circus. There was a cute townie, and we just hooked up. You?”

Natasha, who was walking by at the time, looked up and stared at the two with a scandalous expression. Well, at least for Natasha it was rather scandalous. On another person, it would have been just a regular look, but Clint knew her emotions too well to be tricked. Or at least he would have if he wasn’t so drunk off his ass.

“Third grade,” Tony said, laughing. “Everyone was hooking up. So I did, too. What about your first time?”

Clint’s face fell a little at that, and Natasha visibly tensed. “Clint, you don’t have to say anything,” she growled. She glared at Tony and tried to pull the archer away from the table.

“It’s fine, Natasha,” he said softly. He gave Tony a drunken grin. “On one of my missions, I had to seduce the target.”

“That was your first time?!” Tony exclaimed.

“I told you not to say it,” Natasha groaned. Well, technically she didn’t groan, but it sounded like it in Clint’s drunken ears. “Why the hell are you telling him anyways?”

The archer shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We’re all friends here, right?”

Was it bad that Tony’s heart clenched painfully at those words? He wanted to be more than friends. He wanted… He wanted Clint to tell him those words when he wasn’t drunk. He wanted Clint to laugh and joke around with him, even when he wasn’t drunk. He wanted Clint to tell him every single story, every single secret, without the alcohol aiding him.

Natasha dragged Clint away, throwing Tony dirty looks.

5.  
The next time they got drunk, they were with the whole team, laughing merrily from the leftover adrenaline from their latest mission to save the world. Steve was drinking old brews with a contemplative expression on his face. Natasha was downing vodka like water, competing with Thor who was drinking mead. Bruce looked at everyone with a small frown; he was obviously uncomfortable there, but he did not move to stop his teammate’s fun.

Clint and Tony, meanwhile, took their time and drank slowly. It took them many more hours to become fully drunk, by which time, the rest of the team slowly left the bar.

“You’re gorgeous when you laugh,” Tony admitted as they drank.

Clint laughed at that. “Bet you say that to all the bimbos you sleep with.”

“Aw c’mon, you can’t tell me that the good ol’ Stark charm isn’t working!”

“It ain’t working!” Clint replied with a laugh.

The two laughed and poured themselves more alcohol.

“You know, this is the first time you’ve joined us for a drink after a successful mission,” Tony pointed out.

Clint’s eyes were soft, almost upset. With a forlorn smile, he took another swing of the drink. “It just didn’t seem right. To drink, I mean.”

“When did you stop drinking after a mission?”

“… After Barney’s death.”

Tony stared at his glass.

“But I feel like it’s okay to move on,” Clint said softly. “It’s okay to stop grieving for him. Like those widows that stops wearing black one day.”

“That’s a good analogy. Come with it yourself?”

“Hell no. But you’ve never liked me for my brains.”

“Nah, it’s your pretty face that I want to kiss.” Tony stopped. Wait. Did he just say that out loud?

But Clint just laughed, as if it was a good joke. “You know, I used to have this humongous crush on Thor?”

“What?! With our Thunder God? No way!”

“Yes way! I watched him wrestle this guy in the mud when it was raining and damn… those fine muscles…” Clint sighed happily. “Then I actually met him and realized that he’s more high-maintenance than he was worth. Not to mention…”

Gray eyes stared at Tony for a bit, as if considering. But instead of saying what was in his mind, Clint just laughed and patted Tony’s back. Tony didn’t bring it up for the rest of the night.

+1.  
Flowers, check.

Gelled hair, check.

Casual yet sexy clothes, check.

Plenty of courage, check.

Clint Barton took a deep breath. “Alright,” he muttered to himself. “I’m prepared and ready.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Natasha said. She shook her head, making her disgust very clear. “Especially not with him.”

“You’re just jealous because he likes me better,” Clint told her with a light grin.

Fun-loving smile, check.

She rolled her eyes. “Just go do your thing.”

Best Friend’s approval, check.

Clint walked down the hallway and met the knowing looks of his teammates. He nodded to them and they all gave him pats on the back and soft whispers of “Good luck.”

Teammate’s approval, check.

There were few more checks that Clint needed, but he could wait on them until after. He made his way to Tony’s lab, tugging on his collar a little nervously. JARVIS let him in the lab without much prompting.

Robot’s approval, check.

“Yo Tony!” he called out.

The billionaire stopped working and looked up at Clint. “Hey…. What’s up with this getup?”

Well, here went nothing.

Clint dropped to one knee and presented Tony with the flowers. “Would you please go out with me?”

Tony stared at him blankly, uncertain to what to say.

“I mean… It’s just… Ah…. You see, I’ve been in love with you for a while now. I just… uh… Should I just leave? I mean, it’s completely okay to not accept. I totally understand if you don’t want this at all. If you just want us to be friends or something, that’s okay, too. I’m good at things like that and-”

“Jesus, you’re much more eloquent when you’re drunk!” Tony exclaimed.

He grabbed the archer’s hand and pulled him up to full height. He pulled Clint close to his body and held him there, trying to communicate his feelings through the touch. But just in case the sometimes dim-witted archer didn’t quite understand, Tony opened his mouth and clarified.

“Of course I’ll say yes, stupid.”  



End file.
